WoW forums depress me

[MongoJerry]

Ah, well.  We'll see.  I hope that this will be a game that will be playable for a neophyte but still challenging (and not just in the boredom sense of having to kill a million mobs to level) for a hard core player.  I don't see it now, I don't see it promised, and I don't particularly see it requested by the community.

Pete, if you're looking for challenges, start getting groups together and go through instance dungeons. That's where the real challenges and rewards lie, and I think that's intentional on Blizzard's part. I think the idea is that the outdoor areas can be largely soloed by most players for those who just want to solo for a bit, the mines and castles can be done in groiups of 2-3, and the instances require a well balanced group of five players to run them if you intend to run them at or near the level of the mobs inside. For me, the best part of this game are instance runs. You really get to know people there and how well they work in groups. Lately, I've been running the Monastery's four instances in a wide variety of groups (as a priest, I get invited to run instances by total strangers a *lot*). It's amazing what a difference having skilled players working as a team makes. I ran the library instance of the Monastery with a group yesterday that had all kinds of trouble with deaths and near-deaths. We were constantly struggling to make headway there. Then, I got into a another group of characters of similar levels and the library was an absolute breeze. We then moved on to the cathedral, the hardest instance in the Monastery (and I think in the game for now), and while things were hard and we had a few deaths, we managed quite well and were able to kill the final big three bosses. So I think the instances are where the challenges of the game really lay, and if you want a challenge, I highly recommend them. Oh, and also, if you want the best loot in the game, run instances, too. I can't believe the stuff that drops in the Monastery.